Putin owns a Super Bowl ring thanks to a misunderstanding with Patriots owner Robert Kraft

The New England Patriots are two wins away from what would be
their fifth Super Bowl title in 16 years.

For Patriots owner Robert Kraft, however, winning another
championship would bring his Super Bowl ring collection only to
four, thanks to one of the strangest mishaps in NFL history.

In 2005, Kraft was on a business trip to Russia and visited
Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kraft, carrying his 2004 Super
Bowl ring, showed it to Putin, who apparently tried it on and
then
took it without giving it back.

From the sounds of it, Kraft still hasn't gotten his original
ring back. In a video
the NFL released on Thursday, Kraft relayed the story,
saying:

"[The Super Bowl rings] are all in a drawer except for my third
one. The original is in Russia with the president of the country.
I happened to be there on a business mission with my friend Sandy
Weill. We had just given out our rings. I showed Sandy my ring,
and he said, 'Why don't you show it to the president?' And I
showed it to him and he put it on, and he sort of just enjoyed
it, so he kept it on."

Kraft
had a more colorful description of the events back in 2013,
with his saying: "I took out the ring and showed it to [Putin],
and he put it on and he goes, 'I can kill someone with this
ring.' I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three
KGB guys got around him and walked out."

The New York Post reported that when the incident originally
happened, the Bush administration had asked Kraft, for the sake
of US-Russia relations, to say publicly that he gave the ring to
Putin as a gift.